DEAR JANE: I received an unexpected phone call about a shattering family ‘secret’… Do I dare confront my father?

Dear Jane,

Something disturbing happened the other day and I can’t stop thinking about it.

It was around 11pm and I was home alone when I got a call from an unknown number. Thinking nothing of it, I answered.

The voice on the other end of the phone was a woman who refused to give her name.

She told me that she’s my ‘sister’ – the neglected, secret daughter of my dad with another woman – and that she was coming to ‘take back’ what is hers.

Confused, I asked her to elaborate. But she simply said, ‘you’ll find out soon’ then hung up.

When I tried to call back, she’d blocked my number.

Is it a prank? I doubt it. The caller used a nickname for my father that only our close family use – and I can’t think that any of my relatives would play such a cruel trick.

I don’t want to ask my mother about it as she gets anxious easily. And I don’t want to ask my father because it’s such an awkward topic to bring up.

I’m currently single and I don’t have siblings (that I know of!). Both of my father’s parents are dead, and nor do I have aunts or uncles on his side.

So, really, there’s nobody I can talk to about this.

The call has left me with a niggling fear in the pit of my stomach – and I don’t know how to ease it.

From,

Creepy Call

Dear Creepy Call,

What a nasty call to get. Not so much because you might have a long lost sister, but that a stranger threatened to ‘take back’ what is hers. It sounds ominous in print and must have felt even more so in-person.

International best-selling author Jane Green offers sage advice on readers’ most burning issues in her agony aunt column

Of course, you must be wary of con jobs. Scam artists may use very sophisticated methods, so you must never reveal any personal information to someone who contacts you out of the blue. But there is no doubt in my mind that you should bring this incident up with your father, however uncomfortable that might be.

Life has taught me the importance of having difficult conversations. And your reluctant to speak to your father suggests to me that you may have a sneaking suspicion that it could be true – that you have a ‘secret sister.’ 

So often we twist ourselves into pretzels to avoid hurting someone else, or to evade a conversation that might rock the boat. But it is not your job to protect your father from pain, even though that might be why you are avoiding the conversation. 

If this caller is familiar with your father’s private nickname, it is possible that your dad may know something about her – for instance, who her mother is. 

Having this difficult conversation does not have to be awkward. Most hard topics can be tackled if they are presented gently. Tell your father about the phone call, how it made you feel and how you’re concerned about hurting him and stirring up your mother’s anxiety. These things need to be said.

I have no idea what the solution might be once you have had this conversation, but I do know that you cannot solve this on your own and that your father is the logical person to speak to.

Whatever this ‘secret sister’ is planning can be dealt with. In fact, I suspect she is banking on some element of secrecy to help her get whatever it is she thinks she deserves.

If there is any truth in what this stranger is saying, your father – perhaps the whole family, ultimately – needs to deal with it.

I wish you all well.

Dear Jane,

I recently discovered that my wife was having an affair.

She had told me about a new friend, ‘Hazel’, at our five-year-old’s school. But last month she confessed that ‘Hazel’ was actually a divorced father she’d recently met at the school gate.

My wife and I have since separated as a result. And she is already ‘officially’ dating this guy.

Obviously, I’ve found the whole thing upsetting. But the main problem is to do with my daughter: I’m not ready for her to be around this man all the time.

Yet my little girl goes to school with his daughter so it’s almost unavoidable that she’ll see him regularly.

Our girls are friends, in fact, and have already been on playdates, which means the new guy has already been in my daughter’s life for months.

Meanwhile, as the sole breadwinner, I spend less time with my daughter than I’d like. Now I’m scared this new boyfriend will replace me as a father figure.

Is it too much to demand that my wife keeps our daughter away from him whenever possible?

I don’t know how else to move forward.

From,

Forgotten Father

Dear Forgotten Father,

I am so sorry for the pain this is causing you.

It is devastating when a marriage breaks up, more so when infidelity is involved.

The pain of feeling that the person who broke up your marriage will replace you in your child’s life must be hard to live with.

Please remember, though, that feelings are not facts, they are merely feelings. You will undoubtedly spend less time with your daughter than you would like, for that is the nature of divorce.

But it will not prevent you from having a close, loving, special relationship with your daughter.

Believe me when I tell you that no-one can get in the way of the daddy-daughter relationship if the father is loving and present.

If you love your daughter as much as it appears in your letter, and if you are consistent with your affection and attention, I promise that no-one will ever replace you.

Now, here’s the bad news: you do not have the right to demand your wife keep your daughter away from her boyfriend.

Nor do you have licence to fill your daughter’s head with anything negative or unflattering about the new man in her mother’s life.

Your priority is your daughter and that she is happy, loved and well looked-after by whomever her mother ends up with.

It is far better to encourage a good relationship, however brutal that truth might sound.

The best hope is that he is a good father-figure to her.

The pain will subside in time. One day you really will wake up and find that thoughts about this other man do not tear at your guts in quite the same way.

If you can find a therapist, do.

True healing in the wake of a failed marriage comes not from blaming an ex-spouse, but from looking at our own part in it, what we might have contributed, what our childhoods taught us about love, and how we might do things differently in the future.

You will be OK, even if it doesn’t feel like that right now.